


Redeem us from our solemn hour

by vogelweide



Category: Was Tun Wenn's Brennt? | What To Do In Case Of Fire (2001)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-11-10
Updated: 2011-11-10
Packaged: 2017-10-25 22:24:03
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,052
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/275503
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/vogelweide/pseuds/vogelweide
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Maybe in another life Maik is a braver man.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Redeem us from our solemn hour

Maik doesn’t remember what the fight had been about. He and Tim fight all the time, over meaningless things and important things alike, but they always make up afterwards, fuck and laugh and love.

He remembers the rushing in his ears, and the flush of anger on Tim’s face - he gets so ridiculously angry, so ridiculously idealistic. He remembers exactly where Tim’s fist hit and left a dark bruise, feels it throbbing painfully like an accusation, but for the life of him, he can’t remember the actual words leading up to the collision.

He remembers the door falling shut behind him, as he storms off, and a voice in his head chanting _coward, coward, coward_ as his combat boots carry him down the stairs and onto the street, into the cloudy autumn afternoon.

He remembers being the one to start the fight, just looking for an excuse.

Maik doesn’t go back.

+

He attends film school and has no idea why they even agree to take him, but it makes it a little easier, a little more bearable, to keep to the things he knows. It's one last safety blanket when he’s already given up on everything else. He looks at the world through his lens and pretends he's someone else.

He still believes in their ideals, tries not to lose the things he has fought for, but the instructors praise his talent, tell him he can do _so much better_ with his life, and gradually he bends to their rules. He trades his leather jacket for a peacoat, cuts his hair and tries not to feel like a complete phony when he looks into the mirror.

He swears he’ll get them back one day, will crush their imperialistic views, but the words ring hollow even inside his own head. It becomes a hollow slogan of something he used to carry close to his heart.

Time tends to heal all wounds and Maik is good at what he does. He has a future now, something tangible that doesn't feel like it's going to break any minute, and this is what he was never sure of with Tim. This is what he wanted and somehow that has to be enough not to break.

+

Some nights, he sleeps on the desk in his office, because even after all these years he still can’t get used to an empty apartment, the complete stillness of it unsettling in a way he doesn't want to think about. There’s always about five people too few.

It hits him at odd times, the way he misses dirty dishes piling up in the sink or the complete lack of privacy. He even misses the sharp smell of chemicals from Robert’s secret projects. It used to drive him insane.

He would find it funny, the way memory works, if it didn’t feel so terribly tragic.

When the silence catches up with him in the office, like it eventually always does, he finds himself at the nearest club, some pretty young thing fucking him against a wall in a dirty bathroom until he can’t even string together a sentence in his head. Every thrust just making him wordlessly gasp out the name that he doesn't dare to say out aloud - _Tim, Tim, Tim_.

+

He has an old photograph of the six of them.

It’s not hanging on any wall, but tucked between the books on his shelf, not a bold reminder that he can’t ignore when he needs to, but something that he can still take out and look at whenever the nostalgia wins out. It took him a long time, before he forced himself to find the picture among his old things, before he could admit to himself that being alone wasn't enough.

Sometimes he sits, tracing his own face on the photograph, and thinks, how come you fucked up so badly?

Sometimes Maik wonders, a traitorous flash of thoughts between two heartbeats, if in another life he and Tim change the world like they always promised each other that they would.

If maybe in another life he is a braver man.

+

He doesn't notice Tim and Hotte entering his atelier, but he notices when they're trying to leave, making enough noise to cut through his angry tirade. He’d recognize that lean body anywhere and Mike briefly wonders if this is what a heart attack is like.

His heart doesn't skip a beat when he sees Tim.

It feels like it just full on fucking stops.

Maik calls out, and when his voice doesn’t weaver, it’s like a small miracle.

He ignores his secretary, who is standing by them, trying to catch his attention with an annoyed and confused look on her face. She’s had to put up with worse, she’ll get over it.

Tim turns to him then, with a deer caught in the headlights look, but there’s defiance there, and anger, and Maik doesn’t care that his employees are staring at him like he’s a madman when he simply steps onto his office table and climbs over it, to reach them faster.

His heart is beating out a cacophony of _he’s here please don’t hate me he’s here I really want to kiss you_ and won’t be silenced.

+

“You’ve been living here all this time,” Maik wonders, avoiding eye contact, as he traces his fingers over old and all too familiar slogans spray-painted across the walls. It’s like the place hasn't changed at all, just a couple of more cracks in the wall. He peels back the edge of an unfamiliar poster and discovers one of his old ones underneath. Tim has covered up reminders of him and Maik doesn't try to read too much into that.

And Tim, Tim looks _horrible_ , his head shaved and his clothes in rags, way too thin to be healthy. Maik doesn't find it in him to care, because it’s wonderful to stand so close to him again, to feel the heat from his body as their breathing synchronizes involuntarily.

Eleven years is too long a time to be apart from someone you love, loved, _love_ , and apparently not enough time to make it hurt any less.

“I thought.. you know..” he trails off, not knowing what to say, as awkward as he hasn’t been in years.

“You knew where I was,” Tim says, his unforgiving voice cutting like a knife and Maik doesn’t pretend he doesn’t deserve the words.

That doesn’t mean they don’t break his heart, or rather, what’s left of it by now.

+

He lies on the desk in his office until his back hurts. He’s gotten old and when did that happen, anyway?

He can’t stand his office, maybe hasn’t for a while now, offended by the neon lights outside or the boldness of the red colour. He likes the robot dog, though, and that’s pretty pathetic. He takes it with him when he leaves.

When he reaches Tim’s apartment, he pushes the door open without sound – he remembers how to do that, even after all this time – and toes off his too expensive leather shoes to settle himself on the couch.

Tim is taking a shower in the bathtub, oblivious to his presence, a white shower curtain the only thing separating him from the rest of the room and Maik takes a moment to admire the view. If he never gets another chance again, he’ll have this much. He remembers, a time less tame, when they’d wrap around each other in that bathtub, laughing and moaning and not caring when everybody saw and heard, young and idealistic and shameless.

He doesn’t expect the feeling of utter loss that hits him like a battering ram, eleven years too late.

He squeezes his eyes shut and fights the tightness in his chest, struggling to draw a breath.

He switches on the projector by the couch, using the shower curtain as a canvas, to make Tim aware of his presence, anything to distract himself. Seeing Tim’s irritated, still shampoo covered face look at him, the self-saboteur in him hopes against all hope that he can still make this work. Maik’s changed too much and Tim’s changed too little, but if they just find a way to _fit_ again, it might be enough.

He fucks that up, royally, and wonders why that’s even a surprise anymore.

“This used to be our city,” Tim yells, voice breaking with anger and hurt that he doesn’t manage to hide quite as well as he probably wants to, “Filthy and fucked up, but we always knew which way the sea was!”

Maik thinks maybe his geography isn’t what it used to be.

+

He’s scared.

He’s scared absolutely shitless, because a world where Tim isn’t ridiculously idealistic and ridiculously determined and ridiculously _beautiful_ , is a world that Maik just can’t wrap his head around.

Still, for one moment his first instinct is to flee, his mind screaming at him that there’s too much at stake and that his life is already fucked up enough as it is. Then, just as quickly, he snaps out of the haze of panic, sick to his stomach with self-loathing and shame. He can try to be a better man, for Tim.

Nele shoves him, calls him an asshole and Robert steals his car keys. They work well together, Maik thinks, absently glad that at least nobody had punched him this time. They would leave him behind, just like this, and charge head first into some ridiculous rescue attempt that would get them all imprisoned, if not killed.

That’s the kind of loyal, rash, stupid people they are.

It’s a moment, a breath, before he makes a decision that was never really much of a decision at all. They are fucking hopeless without him and maybe he’s a little bit stupid himself.

“Assholes can come too!” he yells out and rushes after them to the car.

+

This is the first day of the rest of Maik’s life and when he gets off the train, the sun in the cloudless blue sky is blinding. He can't explain the feeling, but he decides they're going to be okay. The harsh sea wind that tousles his hair as he steps out of the station is still cold, but it won’t be for much longer now. Spring began when he wasn't looking.

Tim doesn’t mind the cold as he climbs onto the stone wall by the promenade, facing the waves crashing against the seawall below, and spreads out his hands, his coat bellowing behind him in the wind like a cape.

Maik cheers with the others, before heaving himself up to stand next to him, mirroring his pose. When Tim turns to smile at him there’s no longer animosity in his eyes. Maik has finally been forgiven.

“Come on, you superheroes!” Robert calls indulgently, “Before you fall in!”

Superheroes indeed, Maik thinks and then laughs, hoping that maybe now they’ll finally get around to changing the world. He catches Tim's hand, momentarily humbled and shy due to the simple fact that he's allowed to do that again. They jump back onto the pavement together.

+

Maik’s back slams against his closed apartment door and Tim grins into the kiss when Maik wraps his hand around the back of his neck to pull him in even closer, both of them shivering with anticipation.

It’s so easy now, once they’ve crossed that mental line of mutual agreement, as if they never stopped _being_ , whatever it is that they have always been to each other. They’re driven by pure urgency and need, both too tired of waiting, too eager to reacquaint themselves with the rhythm of their entwined bodies to bother with niceties.

There will be time for that later.

Quick and impatient, they stumble through the apartment, tripping and knocking into things, but never breaking contact. Maik sucks a trail of kisses into the side of Tim’s neck, only pausing when Tim tugs to pull off his shirt, walking backwards through the bedroom door as if he’s always known where it is.

When Maik moves to push Tim backwards onto the bed without waiting for the other man to untangle himself properly from their embrace, they both go down as a result, knocking heads and limbs as they laugh breathlessly.

For the first time, the apartment doesn’t feel too big.


End file.
